Target: Pauline Moreau, Chair of European Institute for Gender Equality

Goal: Allow transgender people to change their gender without being forced to undergo a sterilization procedure.

Members of the transgender community who wish to change their gender are often forced to undergo a sterilization procedure. This practice is entirely outdated and represents a major source of discrimination.

At the moment, a total of 22 European countries require transgender people to be sterilized when legally changing genders. Forced sterilization has been condemned by the U.N. and other health and human rights organizations, who claim that it represents a grave violation of some of the most fundamental human rights.

Fortunately, it would seem that the world is beginning to realize the unfair and barbaric nature of the situation. Several nations, including Ireland, Malta, and Norway, have done away with forced sterilization, and France just recently announced that it has banned forced sterilization. Instead, transgender people need only to notify authorities if they wish to change their gender.

While it is encouraging that some countries have outlawed the practice, forced sterilization remains a persistent problem. Sign the petition below to demand an end to this violation of human rights.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Ms. Moreau,

I am writing to bring your attention to the cruel and unjust practice of forced sterilization. In most European countries, transgender people who wish to change their gender are forced to undergo an operation that prevents them from ever having children. This practice is a clear violation of basic human rights, yet 22 European nations still require it.

The movement to end the practice is already underway; several nations have banned it in recent years, and France just became the latest country to outlaw forced sterilization. Though this progress is encouraging, there is still a lot of work left to be done. I urge you to do everything in your power to ban this custom.

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]

Photo Credit: Nina Matthews

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5 Comments

Sorry cant sign. This is too stupid. A man that becomes a woman doesnt grow a uterus and therefore he cant have children. A woman who becomes a man CANT make children. So there is NO sterilization going on.

Sorry see myself corrected signing now. Wow but i still dont get how that should work because a man that becomes a woman cant bear children. Strange. I even found out my country is one of the bad guys but with that government Its no surprise.

Oh, I see you made a reply to your own comment, SusanneY. Yeah, it can be hard to understand, but very much worth a little effort.

I can answer your question about “a man that becomes a woman cant bear children”. It may take a lot of words, but I feel you’re worth it.

Transgender doesn’t mean there’s been a physical operation. Maybe there has or maybe there hasn’t. At some point we realized that’s less important than what someone feels. I know, what someone feels can’t be verified easily, so how can we be sure the person is really a man or woman before they get an operation, or if they never get one? We can’t, but that’s okay, because we don’t need to verify or judge.

If you were born with the wrong body, a man’s body, Susanne, what would you do?

Most women would get an operation to change to be physically female as fast as they could, and get hormone injections beforehand so they can at least look female in clothes. In the meantime, you may still think of yourself as a girl or a woman, even though your body is otherwise. What should we call you? He or she? We call you she, because that’s what you prefer and that’s what you really are. Pretty simple, actually.

Getting surgery and hormone treatments can be a great option, but the surgeries available can be expensive, painful, imperfect, and stigmatized, so it’s also legitimate to wait to get the surgery, or to NEVER get the surgery, but you may still see yourself as a woman, even though your body is otherwise, and we will still be respectful and accurate to call you she.

Anyway, it’s not really our business to know what’s under your skirt, and maybe you don’t like skirts, and that’s your business too. The important thing is, if you see yourself as female then that’s your real gender.

So you see, a transgender man may still have a uterus and he may wish to use his uterus, with his partner, who is a man or a transgender woman without an operation.

That may be very distressing for him to be pregnant, or not. I think adoption is a great thing, but he may not want that. It may seem odd to us that a man would agree to be pregnant, but thinking about it, it’s very practical. Anyway, it’s his call and he may be a very good father. It’s inefficient and unethical to require him to be sterilized and then go find a surrogate mother.

Please educate yourself before calling something stupid or making strong claims. You can have an opinion, but you’re not the expert on this topic, so it’s inappropriate to claim such authority to judge. You’re factually wrong about sterilization going on. It does go on.

It would take too many words to explain properly, but I’ll say this which is a mix of perspectives: Sexuality and gender aren’t the same. Sometimes they don’t match up. They seem very simple for most people, but can be very complex for other people. They can also change over time.

If that’s too hard to understand, at least it’s easy to understand in the unusual case of a woman who gets a sex change, finds she made a mistake, and changes back to being a woman. Why require her to get sterilized? She may have learned valuable things with which she could be a very good mother, and in any case, it’s her right to choose.